To the observer standing by the back door, looking out at the shiny morning, they must have looked like two children who had been caught sneaking candy from the cupboard. Their steps ginger, their eyes big, Kayla and Jason appeared to be less than half their actual age. But the man at the back door turned to them and smiled. He didn’t seem to be angry. He even seemed less stern than his friendly, but insistent, invitation had led them to believe.
After trying to sidestep the thought, Jason stumbled over the oddity of the man’s attire. He looked just like the pictures of Jesus that Jason had seen in Sunday school, perhaps modified a bit to more of a Middle Eastern look. This fit with Jason’s tendency for historical accuracy, added during college and graduate school. It seemed almost patronizing that Jesus would feel the need to dress the part, to wear a costume in which he apparently posed for all those church material publishers of Jason’s youth. Even as he clutched these thoughts in one hand, Jason was trying to hold them as far away from his face as possible, to keep an unobstructed view of their extraordinary visitor.
Kayla shook him free of all that by simply walking right up to the man and hugging him. That changed everything. His wife was not embracing an idea, as common as that metaphor might be. She was embracing a person. Quickly granting now that Jesus could dress any way he chose, Jason adjusted to the reality of watching Kayla hug Jesus next to the back door. That had never been a thing before. Now he was going to have to deal with it.
What began to build in Jason, however, as he watched the intimate connection between Kayla and Jesus, was not praise and adoration. Instead, his stomach churned, and not just for its morning emptiness. Though people speak of envy as green, Jason saw red. A wave of jealousy flooded his soul and nearly blotted out his eye-sight. At the height of that wave, he paused only briefly to wonder at the root of his jealously. Was it Jesus’s freedom with Jason’s young wife of only a few months? One might forgive the rookie husband for insecurity in his role. Or was he jealous of Kayla’s freedom with Jesus? Perhaps it was the combination that shutdown Jason’s natural senses.
In spite of the intensity of his response, Jason knew that his feelings were wrong, which elevated his anxiety even higher. What was wrong with him? He married Kayla in large part because of her close relationship with the theoretical Jesus. That was a big part of what attracted him when they first met.
Jason and Kayla had met during the summer between his junior and senior years. Kayla, a year younger, joined Jason and two dozen other students who went to Andalucía, Mexico, to help a mission church that was supported by the school’s outreach programs. Though it had become less popular in recent years, many students raised funds to spend a big chunk of their summer serving in a foreign country. Jason and Kayla had both signed up for the four-week stint in the high elevation of central Mexico, north of Guadalajara. They first noticed each other in the orientation session in June, preparing for the big trip.
To Jason, Kayla seemed a funny combination of confident maturity and playful silliness. She and her friend Fran showed up to the first orientation session wearing ridiculously large sombreros and colorful ponchos. Fran had visited Mexico before, with her parents, and produced the gaudy souvenirs to prove it. Though he never found out the true answer, Jason was curious who hatched the idea of wearing those costumes, which attached a label to those two young girls even before most people on the mission team learned their names. Being attractive young women, that label was much more generous than if they had been scruffy young men, of course.
As the respectable upperclassman, Jason just smiled patronizingly and tried to ignore the bright young beauties. The one in the red poncho particularly caught his attention, however, when she dropped her sombrero down her back, to hang from the chin string. He caught her glancing in his direction more than once during that opening meeting. That revelation challenged his ability to conceal a smile, but he remained aloof, as far as Kayla could tell that night.
For two weeks, the students were trained in cultural, linguistic and religious subjects that would help them with their mission to Andalucía. They would be supporting a couple that had been serving in Mexico for fourteen years, building up a Protestant congregation in one of the most intensely Roman Catholic cities in the region. Those missionary pastors had survived that long by not directly opposing the Catholic church. But they had often strained against cultural biases in that context. This would require an educated diplomacy from the young students, who would be teaching children’s classes and inviting people to the church, through various venues and activities.
During their training, Jason could tell that Kayla was a good student, and not so silly as her initial costume had implied. She asked sensitive questions and kept her attention focused on the instructors, while others fiddled with their phones or dozed in the warm summer sun angling into the classrooms. In spite of that focus, Kayla did notice the attention of the tall upperclassman, and she wondered whether she would have to break the ice between them.
Not all of the preparation for the trip was classroom time and planning meetings. The organizers also sought to build camaraderie among the students, to encourage working as a team. During their second week of training, they prepared some simple dramas to do in city plazas, to gather a crowd. But the leaders also threw random collections of students together to perform goofy skits for the rest of the group. And that’s how Jason broke the ice with Kayla.
They were paired up as a married couple in one of the comedic plays. Toward the end of their skit, to which they managed to remember most of their lines, Jason’s character was supposed to hug his wife before leaving for work. Instead, he seized the opportunity to sweep her into a ballroom dancing dip, as if to plant a romantic kiss on her lips. With eyes wide and mouth agape, hanging in Jason’s arms, Kayla screamed, and then laughed at his deviation from the script. Her scream became the biggest laugh line in the skit.
As risqué as that maneuver might have seemed, Jason felt safe doing it with this group of students. He knew Kayla would stop him from going through with the big kiss, and he knew everyone would recognize the humor in his overstepping normal boundaries. These were the serious Christians in the school, the missions-minded lot, which rarely let its hair down, and knew how to stay within the rules. These were the most evangelistically-inclined students in that evangelical college, and the playful skits were an attempt to keep them from being too serious.
Kayla acted shy around Jason after that, which frustrate him at first. Then it occurred to him, as he talked it out with one of his friends, that Kayla had taken his flirtation seriously, and she was still trying to decide how she felt about it. With that in mind, Jason initiated their first substantial conversation.
Walking from a class in evangelistic techniques at the graduate school, up toward the cafeteria, Jason and his friend Tyler followed Kayla and Fran at a distance. Jason decided to take a chance and urged Tyler into a jog, so they could catch up with the girls. Kayla looked back when she heard the footsteps and smiled upon seeing who it was.
Jason received that smile like a glass of cool water on a hot day. Though he wouldn’t have been able to articulate it at the time, he was a bit afraid that she would take off running when she saw it was him.
“Mind if we join you?” Jason said.
Kayla kept her smile on, but Fran answered. “Not as long as you’re buying,” she said, teasing about the prepaid cafeteria lunch, that was part of the cost of the summer term.
Tyler made a show of rummaging in his pockets for cash, something these students had very little of. They all laughed, both for the shared joke, and for the shared tension between two potential couples. Though Tyler and Fran had seen no fireworks as yet, neither resented being thrown together by virtue of being the second to the star—almost—couple of the mission group. As is usually the case, others could see the obvious attraction between Jason and Kayla even more clearly than they could.
“So, Kayla. I know you’re an art major. What
kind of art do you do?” Jason said, catching a little eye-contact when she turned to acknowledge his question.
“Painting, mostly, with some charcoal and pastel sketches.”
“Pastel? That’s kinda like chalk, right?” Tyler said, glad to help Jason out. He figured his friend probably didn’t know the difference.
“Kind of, but more permanent, and the texture is smoother.” Kayla explained this with no hint of annoyance at the ignorance displayed by her lunch companions.
“Have you always known you wanna be an artist?” Jason said.
Kayla slowed down and looked at Jason more seriously now, she was getting the feeling that he was really trying to understand her. Her hesitation brought Jason up next to her and left Tyler and Fran each walking alone, Fran in front and Tyler behind. Tyler rectified the situation by skipping around Jason and Kayla and catching up with Fran, both of them bustling toward lunch as an excuse to give the love birds some space.
Kayla was impressed that Jason didn’t ask what most people did, when they heard she was a painter: “What do you plan to do with that?” Jason knew instinctively what she wanted to do. Part of that wisdom came from his own desire to be a novelist. He could recognize a fellow dreamer.
They spent that lunch getting to know each other, seated at a big round table with only Tyler and Fran for company. The underutilized table gave a sense of privacy, without the intimidating commitment implied in a table for two. Jason learned about Kayla’s little hometown in Minnesota, her parents and her big brothers. Kayla, in turn, learned about Jason’s home near St. Louis, his mother and father, and his little sister, still in middle school.
“She would love you,” Jason said of his little sister, Tracy. “She always wanted a big sister. I always felt like I had failed her somehow.” He laughed and watched Kayla’s reaction, always monitoring and measuring the emotions of the people around him.
Kayla noted the word “love” entering the conversation unannounced. However, she was not the kind of girl who kept score, drew lines in the sand, or made tick marks on the door, to measure the growth of a relationship.
By the time they arrived in Mexico, it was a relationship. When they arrived, the work served as a convenient speed bump, to slow their youthful rush into each other’s arms. Their arms were full most of the time during that summer mission.
Jason was part of the music side of things. He played guitar effortlessly, the lead guitarist in a band of school friends. Lugging his acoustic guitar around was part of his sacrifice for the cause.
Kayla led one of the children’s ministry groups, a pied piper for kids, even across the cultural divide. Her Spanish was good enough for relating to those young ones.
They both put their hands to the building project that occupied almost half of the trip, a renovation of a new space for Sunday services. Finding a larger venue had been a long process, hindered by a broad refusal among property owners to rent to a non-Catholic church. Once the pastor, Pedro, explained for which church he was working, a building suddenly became unavailable. Finally, they procured the top floor of a building from a man who hated all churches equally, but loved to receive rent payments.
Though he was far from looking for a mother for his future children, Kayla’s magnetic genius with the children transfixed Jason. Instead of the urge to have children of his own, she stirred in him the urge to be part of life with a person who could do something so well, so effortlessly, and do it for God’s kingdom. Attaching his heart to Kayla’s had inspired a stronger attachment to church and service. That’s how he thought when he swooped past the sparkling attraction of this funny young woman he had just met, toward a more serious commitment.
For Jason, the peak experience on that mission trip with Kayla, came on the last night of the children’s club, just a day before they would fly back to the United States. Combined with the hours of hard work, unfamiliar food, cramped sleeping arrangements and general exhaustion, the emotion of saying goodbye to children that they had known for an intense two weeks spilled out repeatedly during the awards ceremony at the closing service. Part of the design of that final night was to draw in the parents to see their children receive various awards for art, drama, scripture memory, and attendance. Not only were children crying in Kayla’s arms that evening, but half a dozen mothers were as well, grateful for the heart with which this young woman cherished their children and taught them about God.
Jason had his own tearful parting the following day, with a boy named Ricardo, who hung around and cajoled some free guitar lessons during the four weeks. But during that final night of the children’s club. Jason fought back tears while watching Kayla laughing and weeping her farewells. That was the first time he saw her pale skin highlighted by her flame-red nose and eyes. And his heart ached with hers for the loss of time with those children. It also ached for a lasting connection to this same young woman that the children loved so dearly.
The next morning, in the minibus carrying them to the airport, Jason put his arm around Kayla as she lay her head on his shoulder, exhausted physically and emotionally, and changed forever.
Though neither of them ever became aware of it, the organizers of that annual summer mission trip kept track of how many lasting couples formed out of the heart-soaked experience of each summer. They didn’t spoil the romance for Kayla and Jason by sharing their numbers.
Their relationship rose on swells and sank to uncertain depths during the next two years, but they eventually married on Valentine’s Day, during Jason’s second year of graduate school. Even on that wedding day, Jason saw in Kayla the child-charmer in Mexico, full of fun ideas, laughter and intense tears.
Though it had been invisible at the time, Jason fell in love with Kayla because of the way she enjoyed God’s embrace of her life, the way she so passionately loved Jesus. Now, in his sunny kitchen, he was fending off the dragons of jealousy and anxiety, as he watched his wife hugging, and laughing with, a visible and audible Jesus.
Perhaps as much as the mission trip’s emotionally rigorous toll, the last two days had exhausted Jason’s heart with calisthenics that sapped his strength to resist his worst impulses. Those impulses churned his stomach, as Jesus and Kayla both turned toward him. They were partially silhouetted by the bright sunshine behind them, a disadvantage for Jason. He was instantly frustrated by the mutual looks they aimed at him, annoyingly sympathetic and concerned. He didn’t want to have Kayla joined with Jesus in compassion for him. He wanted to be the one joined with Kayla.
Jesus stepped toward Jason, who felt his upper body tense in reaction. Then a sort of quivering began in his facial muscles, down to his shoulders and spreading to his arms. Try as he might, Jason couldn’t control the shaking.
“You’re under attack, Jason,” Jesus said informationally, no alarm in his voice. But he wasn’t standing back to merely witness the attack of which he spoke.
“Aaaatttaaackkkk?” Jason shuttered, his eyes growing wide with shock. Over Jesus’s shoulder, he saw that same shock on Kayla’s face. Jason didn’t want to be the object of Kayla’s worries.
“An enemy has hold of your heart, right where you’ve attached it to Kayla, a sort of fear driving you to cling and worry that you will lose her,” Jesus said. He sounded like he was teaching, not preparing for what came next. “Do you want me to chase that away?”
Jason could feel perspiration beading on his forehead, a drip of sweat even beginning to run down his back. It wasn’t that warm in the apartment, but he felt like he had a sudden high fever. “Yessssss,” he said, in answer to Jesus’s offer of vanquishing this invisible enemy.
In response to that acceptance, Jesus grabbed both of Jason’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. That stare seemed to send lasers into Jason’s brain. He saw bright flashes of orange and yellow behind his eyes, and he heard a pitiful screaming, someone suffering intensely for about four seconds. Then he realized…that someone was him.
At the end of that grotesque scream, all was pea
ce. Jesus smiled, like a father waiting to see his son’s reaction to some new food or drink that he had been wanting to share with him. Kayla approached them tentatively, looking around Jesus’s shoulder, still wearing her pastel print robe, bare feet treading silently on the tan kitchen tile. When he turned to look at her face, Jason watched it transform from a mask of surprise, eyebrows elevated as high as he had ever seen them, to a relieved smile.
Instead of Jason standing in opposition to the tandem of Jesus and Kayla, he felt now that they were all together, united.
Jason could tell that Kayla wanted to ask if he was okay, he could see that question in her eyes, but they were both deferring to Jesus, as one might imagine. After all, Jesus had seized the agenda already. He had, in fact, become the agenda as no one else could. But, instead of making a point, or keeping the focus on what had just happened, Jesus slipped his hands down Jason’s shoulders and then around his back, drawing him close for a very tight hug.
It felt to Jason as if Jesus were proving that he was really there by the sheer strength of his embrace. If he could have breathed, Jason would have laughed. Kayla slipped around to the side of those two men, so she could join in their union. In response, both Jesus and Jason slipped an arm around Kayla and pulled her into their quiet celebration.
As the hug loosened, Kayla and Jason looked at each other. Their eyes asked questions, but their lips remained sealed, both of them reserving a small back door out of the experience they were sharing. Jesus doesn’t just show up in your kitchen. They both knew that. Neither of them was the sort of spiritual pioneer that would blaze this trail, and they knew that about each other, as well. They chose silence, as a reserve against the unbelievable happening right there in their arms.
“Why do you doubt?” Jesus said, letting them go and crossing his arms. His attitude looked like a challenge, not curiosity.
Again, Kayla and Jason looked at each other. Kayla was thinking about her very intelligent and rational husband, and the times when he had smiled at her in a patronizing way, to allow her some mysticism, as a personality quirk, one that posed no challenge to his rational faith. She was thinking, just briefly, that her husband was holding her back.
Sharing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 3) Page 6